Micro-mysteries, Flash Fiction, and Mystery Short Stories by Aria Klein

stalker

Chrissy’s eyes barely opened enough to make out the text on her phone. Who the hell would text someone at two in the morning? It must be a wrong number.

She put her phone back on her nightstand and rolled over.

Buzz. Buzz.

Chrissy picked up the phone again and saw “I miss you baby” staring back at her in her text notifications.

“I’m not your baby. You have the wrong number,” she responded.

Before she could turn the phone off, it rang. She answered it.

“Hello? I’m sorry. But I told you. You have the wrong number,” Chrissy said.

“No I don’t. Why are you being such a tease? You want me to come over, don’t you?” The voice was strangely familiar, but Chrissy couldn’t place it.

“No. I don’t know you. Please leave me alone.”

“You know who this is baby.”

“No. I don’t,” Chrissy insisted as goosebumps formed along her arms.

“You know me baby. And I know you want me,” he said.

“I’m hanging up now.” But he jumped in before she could.

“You do that baby. I’m just up the road at our favorite little pub. I’ll be at your apartment in less than five minutes.”

She froze as he hung up. She worked at a pub up the street from her apartment. She worried it wasn’t a wrong number after all.

Plenty of guys worked there and hung out there regularly. Staff contact information was easy to come by. It was kept behind the bar in case someone needed to call around for fill-ins. And anyone who saw her there could have followed her home to find out where she lived.

She grabbed her phone, purse and car keys and headed out her front door to the stairwell. But she saw headlights pulling into the parking lot in front of her building from the window there. That could be the guy.

She turned around and pounded on the door of her neighbor across the hall. If he was heading to her apartment, she wanted to be anywhere but there. The neighbor, a woman of around Chrissy’s age, answered just as the headlights dimmed. Seeing how frantic Chrissy was, she let her come inside.

Chrissy ran to the neighbor’s living room window that overlooked the front parking lot. She saw the man walk up to the exterior door. His face was highlighted by the floodlights pointing down at the doorway. He looked up towards the window where she stood.

She recognized him. He was a regular at the bar.

She was horrified to see him pull a key out of his pocket and use it to open the front door.

“Oh my god,” Chrissy cried. “I should call the police.”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Chrissy could hear the man’s footsteps as he approached the floor of her apartment. She held her breath, not sure if he’d shout, bang on her door, or quietly leave if he couldn’t get in.

Instead, she heard a key go into the lock of her neighbor’s door. The doorknob slowly turned as Chrissy started dialing 9-1-1.

She stopped when her neighbor squealed.

“Oh sweetie, you almost scared us half to death” she said as she flung her arms around the man. “Chrissy, this is my boyfriend, Mike. You’ve probably seen him around.”

Chrissy let herself breathe again, pushing out a huge sigh of relief. Maybe it was a wrong number after all.

“Hey baby,” he said, turning his smile to Chrissy.

Her breath once again escaped her. She glanced out the window towards her car. It sat barely ten yards away, but, to Chrissy, even that suddenly looked like miles.

This story is loosely based on a real incident. The texts and call happened almost exactly like this, but dragged out over more and were far more lewd. The apartment setup here was based on mine at the time. And the pub scenario came from a similar incident related to my ex-fiance who worked in a restaurant very close to the apartment.

In my case, thankfully the individual on the other end of the line was too far away to show up. It was an ex who had been stalking me for about two years. After a long break where he’d finally left me alone, I didn’t recognize his voice, and he’d used a different phone number, though I did later get confirmation. At the time, the incident was rather unnerving.